Charon Linux Toolkit - Release notes for Kit 1.54

Version: 1 - Published: Apr 15, 2020 

• Support for Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX V4.10 Build 202-05 (patch)

• Added default start and stop timeout for virtual machines service. Set to 20 minutes both by default. Changing this value will only affect newly created virtual machines. To change (or add) timeout values in existing virtual machines, please run "menu" -> "VM Management" -> "Manage 'systemd' services", select the virtual machine and edit the .service file (not available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x)

• Alerts on events (warning and error messages in the log file by default) are now blocked if 5 consecutive iterations of checks (each 1 minute by default) send alerts. Emails are released after 20 minutes or if an iteration does not find any alert. This is to prevent from sending tons
  of emails if Charon starts reporting lots of errors in the log (example: "<NIC>: RX FIFO overflow detected.")

• Automatic log files archiving (crontab/charon_logarchive) now archives OPA0 log files if defined in the configuration file

• Added an option to test kit compatibility (experimental) with OS installed in language other than en_US.UTF-8 (which is forced in scripts in such a case). To activate: # touch /root/.charon.experimental

• Automatic log files archiving (crontab/charon_logarchive) now always keeps the latest log file if rotating log is enabled

• Main menu title updated (Stromasys - Legacy server emulation): color issues fixed when using Windows Terminal.

• Minor update in the menusetup: sentence updated to remind user to install missing packages *AND* restart the script to complete installation

• Added more checks and warning displays for missing packages

• Incorrrect PATH settings during "menusetup" installation: was not able to accept PATH settings from other scripts in /etc/profile.d

• When displaying list of virtual machines, some characters where added if the hw_model word was found somewhere else in the configuration file

• Request for new license or license update option could not generate the C2V file for software licenses

• Log archiving script: bug solved that did prevent from removing zipped files and minor display update

• Question updated in the connect to console option if a connection is already active

• "vmstart -h" and "vmstop -h" commands were pointing to the wrong usage text

• The new rpm file introduced with Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX V4.10 Build 202-05 (patch) is correctly removed when using the "Install/Upgrade/Remove Charon" option from the menu.

• minor update in log archive job (crontab)

• "HASP license details", "License driver management", "Request for new license or license update" and "License update tool" options now display the number of licence dongles and software licenses (with more details for the "License driver management" option)

• It is now possible to remove a software license from the "License update tool" option. This option is available only if at least a software license is present and files are not deleted but archived (renamed as .archive in the /var/hasplm/installed/68704 folder. The license (aksusbd) service is automatically restarted if a license has been removed.

• Automatic log files archiving (crontab/charon_logarchive) now always keeps the latest log file if rotating log is enabled

• license expiration check: if a custom script is used for monitoring software, the counter alert is sent all time if no alert (NEUTRAL) is detected

• Support of Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX V4.10 build 202-03 and above. Please note if a graphic card (PBXGA) is defined in the configuration file, the virtual machine will have to be started interactively (manually) and not with the Linux Toolkit

• The menu options "License driver management (aksusbd)" and "Show host information" now displays the list of HASP dongles, if any, with their location and version

• Minor update in license expiration check display: added major and minor version of the license

• When applying a V2C file with the character user interface, V2C files with creation date equal to current date will be highlighted to make them easier to find

• List of virtual machines, either from the menu or from the vmlist command now:

  • displays the Charon products installed versions for versions 4.8 and above ("vmlist" command only)

  • displays memory used by the Charon virtual machine (pmap)

  • displays an alert if service is running and the configuration file has been updated after the service started

• When generating a software license from the menu, a false error was reported preventing from sending the c2v file by email.

• If a tap device was used:

  • the list of virtual machines did not display anything in the "Network:" part. This is now solved

  • after editing the configuration file with the 'menu' or with the 'vmcfg' command line, no check was performed for tap_port. This is now solved

• Copyright year updated from 2018 to 2019

• The menu option "Sentinel Admin Control Center (firefox)" was in debugging mode, now solved.

• The menu option "Show host information" now displays build number for Charon-VAX executable files found.

• If a prestart script was setup on a RHEL 6.x server, the startup was failing. Solved.

• The prestart script, if defined per virtual machine, was executed after the license presence check. This could prevent from running commands to activate a port on a USB/network box (see below)

• The license presence check has been removed thanks to the "set session license_key_lookup_retry" feature in that can be defined in the configuration file. This check could only check a license was present and could not correspond to the one necessary to start the Charon virtual machine.

• charon-mtd rpm file is correctly removed when uninstalling Charon-AXP and/or Charon-VAX. This rpm file was introduced with V4.9 B194-07

• It is no more possible to uninstall Charon from the menu option "1 - Install/Upgrade/Remove Charon" if a virtual machine is running

• When applying a license file via the Character User Interface (CUI), a check is performed inside the v2c file for the necessary tags as some email content filters can corrupt the content of the v2c files.

• Firefox could fail with "Running Firefox as root in a regular user's session is not supported" message in case the session was not opened directly connected as root (with "su"). A workaround has been implemented for the following options:

  • Sentinel Admin Control Center (firefox)

  • License update tool (apply V2C file)

• If no recipient was defined for the alerts, the default was set to support@stromasys.com, this opened a ticket in our ticketing system without information on the sender and no information reported to the users. Now the default is to send a message to root@<hostname> and support@stromasys.com.

• When starting a virtual machine that is not automatically started at Linux server boot, a message related to "reset failed" was displayed. This is now solved

• License expiration check can:

  • Now execute a custom script named "/opt/charon/utils/charon_expchk.custom" when it detects a license expiration, useful with monitoring utilities

  • Work now as a separate kit for Charon-SSP and Charon-HPA

• Preferences:

  • New option to globally disable log monitoring in case virtual machines log files and license driver (aksusbd) are monitored by a dedicated software.

  • Update on OOM Killer management:

    • The vm.overcommit_memory parameter can be updated with values 0, 1 or 2 (explanations are available by entering ? while selecting the mode)

    • The vm.panic_on_oom parameter can be updated with values 0 or 1 (explanations are available by entering ? while selecting the mode)

    • "Charon VM process killing prevention" can be selected regardless of vm.overcommit_memory value

• Show host information

  • The output file generated displays more information on 'ncu'

  • Firefox could fail with "Running Firefox as root in a regular user's session is not supported" message in case the session was not opened directly connected as root (with "su"). A workaround has been implemented

• Menu:

  • "Virtualization technology" replaced by "Legacy server emulation"

  • colors updated

  • check added to limit execution to one user at a time.
    Note: if you upgrade from a previous version, the aliases have to be reset running the following commands:
    # cd /opt/charon/utils
# ./menusetup -a

• The "vmstop" command has a new parameter -f or --force to stop a virtual machine without asking for confirmation

• License expiration check: bug solved when a USB reset was requested. This was working only for RHEL 6.x and not RHEL 7.x and CentOS7

• Preference update on OOM Killer management: when the vm.overcommit_memory parameter was set to 2, the virtual machines could not be protected against OOM. This is now solved.

• In case the virtual machine is not defined to boot at Charon server boot, the virtual machine state column could show a wrong status

• If Out Of Memory (OOM) killer is used, it is strongly recommended to set the "OOM global status" and "Charon VM process killing prevention" to enabled from the "Preferences" option rather than disabling OOM at global level as this option does not work in 100% of the cases. The preferences option will be updated on next release to only prevent OOM from killing Charon at process level.

• Support of Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX V4.9 build 194-02 and above

• Removed support for Charon-AXP V4.5

• Log monitoring updated for Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX V4.9 syntax change.

• When using the "vmlist" command, if a daemon related to the license driver is missing, an alert is displayed.

• Alerts management

  • It is now possible to disable the alerts sent if the hardware specifications of the Linux server are below the recommended ones from the "Alerts management" menu option. Messages will still be present in the log file but the alert will not be sent.

  • It is possible to disable/enable(default) the immediate alerts sent on USB dongle disconnection/connection

  • If the installed version is V4.9 or above, an option is added to reduce the number of warning messages sent on license dongle removal.

• When using command lines like vmstart, vmstop, vmcfg and vmconsole, the latest virtual machine name used is stored so that next commands do not need the configuration file name as a parameter. This is useful when there's more than one virtual machine on the server. If there's only one, no need to specify the configuration file name
  Previously:
  # vmstart pluto
# vmconsole pluto
  Now:
  # vmstart pluto
# vmconsole

• Display change in the list of virtual machines:

  • Layout reviewed for ease of reading

  • A warning is displayed if the root password has expired. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x this can prevent the virtual machine from starting.

  • Emulator and configuration file are now separated for better readability

  • The virtual machine selected from command lines mentioned above is identified with a star in the virtual machines list instead of a dash

  • If a pre-start script is defined, the first 3 lines executed before the virtual machine starts are displayed

  • If the log full path is not specified for a virtual machine an alert is displayed (full path is mandatory for log monitoring)

  • If the virtual machine is active and its log is monitored and the operating system uses 'systemd' (RHEL 7.x and CentOS 7.x) and the installed Charon version is V4.9 and above, the license status is displayed (license found, communication lost/restored, connection lost/application will stop, license expiration information)

• Option added to restart all log monitoring services from the "Manage monitored guests logs" menu option, useful in case of kit upgrade.

• Syntax highlighting updated for 'vim' and 'gvim' to highlight the configuration file displayed in the log

• Show Host Information:

  • Option updated to display the content of the prestart script if defined

  • Highlight updated for the configuration file displayed in the log file for Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX V4.9

  • Added "lscsi -g" output in the Storage part

• The "Request for new license or license update (send C2V file)" option has been updated for the new features provided with recent kits: if the c2v file can be generated for different keyids, one c2v file will be generated per keyid instead of one c2v file for the 1st license found. The zip file sent via email will contain all the c2v files generated.

• How-to setup an ssh trust between Linux and Tru64 readme file has been updated in the "Create/Edit guest stop script" menu option and now explains what has to be done if a "no matching cipher found" message is displayed when executing an ssh command from the Linux server to the Tru64 one.

• Preferences: added an option to add a separator when displaying defined virtual machines (default is none).

• When starting a virtual machine, if a network interface defined in the configuration file has an IP address, it is automatically disconnected using the "nmcli dev disconnect (iface) <nic>" interface command and a warning alert is sent.

• Option added in the menu to open the Sentinel Admin Control Center.

• If you're upgrading the toolkit, all the services monitoring the virtual machines logs have to be restarted from the "Manage monitored guests logs" menu option. The aksusbd log monitoring has to be restarted too. This does not affect running virtual machines.

• The Charon-AXP/VAX version 4.9 provides a new syntax for OPA0 settings. Please note due to the detached process mechanism, no one terminal application can be started automatically thus the 'application' parameter must not be used.

• The license monitoring within Charon-AXP and Charon-VAX V4.9 versions will provide much more information in the log than in previous versions. More alerts will then be sent in case of license switch (main/backup) or removal.

• If a stop script was set and comment lines were not removed, the list of guests displayed was showing the wrong method used to stop the virtual machine. This is now solved.

• Minor update in predefined stop scripts for rsh and ssh: when the system is not alive, the script was trying to report a return code that is not needed

• Bug solved with command lines (vmlist, vmconsole, etc..): newly added guests were not found until the boot settings (Enable/Disable start at server boot) were set.

• If the configuration file is moved or deleted the virtual machines list is reporting this issue

• Wrong result was shown in the alert when the service failed. This result has been removed. In case the service fails, it now only displays this information and manual investigation has to be done.

• The "License Update Tool" option has been corrected to display _fmt (format) files before the license update so sorted by license, sequence then type (format 1st then update)

• Minor bug with displayed Linux server boot time solved, now uses the correct command (who -b)

• Fixed a problem where the number of cpus for a virtual machine was not correctly displayed

• Virtual machines (guests) stop script:

  • 3 scripts have been added for ease of clean shutdown of your guests. They can work with either 'expect', 'ssh' or 'rsh' (warning: there are restrictions with the guest operating system version). It is still possible to install your own customized scripts.

  • A new way of editing the script has been implemented and now, newly discovered guests will be added automatically in the script file. This does not mean you won't have to provide the necessary information depending on the method chosen.

  • Information on how to implement these 3 methods is available from the "Create/Edit guest stop script" option in the form of how-to files.

  • Option added to test the stop script.

• When displaying the guests, more information is provided in the "stop script" column. It can now tell if a provided charon_gstop_<xxx> script is used or if a customized script is.

• Syntax highlighting added while editing a configuration file with vim/gvim

• Information on PuTTY settings and recommendations added in the Documentation menu.

• New command lines added:

  • 'vmstart': starts a virtual machine

  • 'vmstop': stops a virtual machine

  • 'vmconsole': connection to the virtual console

  • 'vmcfg': edit the configuration file and performs some checks on exit
    Note: these commands work only for existing virtual machines managed by the toolkit.

• After editing a configuration log file (using the "menu" or "vmcfg"), a test is performed to check the Charon log and OPA0 log files (if defined) can be created. This is to avoid specifying log files in folders that do not exist.

• An option has been added in the preferences to disable semi-graphics/drawing tables (can be useful with some terminal emulators).

• A script can be executed before the virtual machine starts (pre-start). The option is available from the "VM Management" menu option then "Create/Edit guest pre-start script". On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x servers, this requires the service to be reinstalled from the "VM Management" menu option.

• If a stop script is set and comment lines are not removed, the list of guests displayed is showing the wrong method used to stop the virtual machine. Mar 13, 2018 

• Newly added guests are not found until the boot settings (Enable/Disable start at server boot) are set when using the 'vmstart', 'vmstop', 'vmconsole' and 'vmcfg' commands. Mar 13, 2018 

• When editing a configuration file with gvim, the checks were executed before the gvim window was closed. This is now solved.

• When starting/stopping a service, if CTRL-C was pressed, the next operation displayed the service status more than once. This is now solved.

• Fixed a problem that did set all stopped virtual machines status to "unrequested" if the license was not found when starting one virtual machine.

• A freeze could occur when starting a virtual machine or when checks were performed if a "load / interface" line was misconfigured in the configuration file

• USB dongle connection message updated. It is now more simple and understandable. This requires a restart of the aksusb monitor service: menu option "Manage monitored guests logs" then "Start or Restart aksusbd log monitor"

• Copyright updated to 2013-2018

• Fixed a bug that in the connect to console menu: when viewing console logs errors could be listed and number of lines in the log were not displayed

• Network checks: if an IP address was assigned to an interface used for Charon, the check was not correct for RHEL 7.x and CentOS 7.x. This is now solved.

• minor display bug with "Service timeouts" and "Description" on the same line. Now solved.

• In case of kit upgrade, the log monitoring service will have to be restarted for all virtual machines on the server (this does not affect running virtual machines)

• Due to a bug in our Wiki and its PDF exporter some links inside the PDF document are pointing to the online version of the document instead of the document itself

• Support for V4.4 removed. The console autoconnect feature is then disabled (was used to solve a buffer issue in V4.4). It you upgrade from a previous version of the toolkit, please update the root's crontab to remove the 'charon_console_autoconnect' entry. To create a log of the console, please use the 'set OPA0 log=<logfile>' feature available starting with version 4.6

• Show host information:

  • the "top" command output has been added

  • more information on memory added including high memory consumers

  • minor visual updates in HTML output file

• Added checks to notify a log or console log is not unique: it should be when more than one virtual machine is defined

• Menu: the option used to manage services is now renamed to "VM Management"

• Preferences can now be set:

  • default editor for CUI and GUI

  • log display when starting/stopping a guest (virtual machine)

  • Out Of Memory (OOM) Killer settings: preferences can be set for the Charon virtual machine process to be protected against OOM Killer

  • Notes:

    • this menu entry replaces the "Connect to console" one. The "Connect to console" entry is still available from the "VM Management" menu entry.

    • the preferences are asked in the setup process but can be defined later

• When a virtual machine is started or stopped the log is automatically displayed unless this option is disabled in the Preferences (not valid for RHEL 6.x). To end the display, press CTRL-C

• Documentation menu entry: online help has been added for the other command lines (vmlist, logtail, logview)

• Alerts management:

  • Option added to customize the emails sender name, useful when emails are sent using the same sender (with a relay mailer for example). Note: if you did not customize the alert script, please use the menu option "13 - Alerts management" then "6 - Update/reinstall alert script"

  • Option added to send simulation alerts

• Send configuration and log files via email enhanced with color for ease of reading (same as "Show host information" / HTML file)

• When displaying the virtual machines list, if a timeout is defined on service start and/or stop, it is now displayed

• Menu setup: the 'at' package has been added as a requirement

• Menu entries: title changed for Virtual Machines Management

• Show host information:

  • script updated to display more information during the HTML file creation

  • a blank line was added after a comment line when displaying the configuration files. Issue solved

• Log monitoring:

  • In case the aksubd service had to be restarted, an email was sent with the command output (from 'at' job). This is no more the case.

  • when the log is using the rotation mechanism, a license detected message was sent when the rotation occurred whereas it should be sent only when the virtual machine starts or when a dongle has been plugged in. This problem is now solved.

  • when the log is using the rotation mechanism, if a hardware specification is not met, a warning message was sent not only when the virtual machine started but also when the log rotation occurred. This problem is now solved.

  • when a dongle is detected as disconnected but is physically still connected, a message was sent pointing to the wrong menu option. This is now solved. (Reminder: in such a case, an automatic recovery operation is performed to try to reconnect the dongle)

• As the console autoconnect feature is removed, the 'screen' program is no more mandatory

• Clean shutdown: the example script has been simplified and corrected.

• The script that is used to check abnormal termination of services is no more installed in the crontab when running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x and CentOS 7.x as the services are monitored by systemd (script: charon_mongstop)

• Alerts management: solved an issue where the stop alert was sent without the "requested by user" information. Note: this does not take into account the F6 key if enabled as the F6 is not recorded in the log.

• When the virtual machine failed, a wrong status (success) was sent. This is now solved.

• Minor bug correction on Show host information option that did prevent from sending the email when using the "Send HTML file to recipient" option

• Validated with CHARON-AXP and CHARON-VAX V4.8

• Validated on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7 + CentOS 7

• Minor updates on log messages and color display for better visibility

• Some updates in the main menu entries, names set to match the V4.8 utilities, edit configuration files option removed from the main menu as it is located in the menu option 8.

• New option to view and restart the license service status (aksusbd)

• A new command line is added, named "vmlist" to display the list of managed virtual machines and their status (same as menu option 8)

• Show host information option (used for debugging):

  • now reports configuration files description

  • the files located in /opt/charon/log are joined to the zip file when emailed

  • includes the "vmlist" view (see above)

  • extended table of contents

  • now includes the output of 'lsblk' command

  • can be used out of the Linux Toolkit to generate system configuration reports

• Ready for the new "License has changed" messages (0000040B) in the logs (vimrc and continuous tail)

• After editing a log file, a check is performed to verify the full path to the log file, or to the folder if rotating log files are used, is specified

• Copyright updated/year

• Clean shutdown examples updated for RHEL 7.x and CentOS 7: now when a service is stopped it reports INACTIVE/REQUESTED and no more FAILED

• log archive from crontab: gzip issue solved / error with existing files

• Install/Upgrade/Remove CHARON: "Type" column is removed (wrong information was reported)

• License expiration check updated due to changes in the hasp_srm_view output starting with CHARON-AXP/VAX V4.8

• Install/Upgrade/Remove CHARON option now installs packages with gpgcheck disabled to avoid issues with user created repositories

• Email subject changed when events are detected (CHARON was mentioned twice)

• Solved an issue while displayed the virtual machines due to the new version of the 'ncu' utility (stuck when displaying the network interface status)

• Validated with CHARON-AXP and CHARON-VAX build 17103 (patch)

• Comments can be added in the configuration file and will be then displayed when initiating the telnet connection on the console from the menu. Used for example to describe disks layout. Those lines must start with "#INFO:" then the comments

• Kit version updated with major and minor version

• When viewing a log file using 'vim' editor, a configuration file is loaded to highlight log entries making it easier to read

• 'gvim',if installed, is now recognized and proposed as an editor (graphical 'vim')

• When displaying guests (virtual machines), the network cards used are displayed and some checks are performed: existence, already used, managed by 'ncu'. Checks are also performed after editing the configuration file

• Service management option: viewing debug log option has been removed

• Option added when viewing a virtual machine log file from the menu to edit the log without 'regular license check' messages

• Two commands have been added, 'logtail' and 'logview', that allow you to continuous tail a virtual machine log file or to edit it using 'vim' with lines highlighting. If no parameter is passed, it takes the current log file for the virtual machine managed by the toolkit. If there are multiple virtual machines defined, a selection menu is displayed.

  Use 'logtail -h' and 'logview -h' for help.

  Notes:

  • If you're upgrading from a previous version, use the following commands to define the new aliases:

    .

  • These options are also available from the "Service Management" menu option then "View latest guest log file"
    .

• Connection to console now offers an option to kill active 'telnet' sessions on consoles

• The installation menu now handles the 'complete pack' files, including their associated md5sum file, that can be downloaded from the FTP server

• Sending logs via email: it is now possible to select the number of logs to send (default = 3 latest ones)

• When editing a configuration file or when starting a virtual machine, .iso files (*.[iI][sS][oO]) existence is checked as well as the .vdisk files

• License expiration check failed to read some licenses with expiration set to unlimited. If you receive error messages from root related to execution of charon_expchk script and you can't immediately upgrade to version 1.44, you can just comment the related line in the crontab ("menu" → "Manage recursive jobs")

• Console autoconnect feature is now disabled at Toolkit installation as starting with version 4.6 the console logging can be defined in the configuration file

• Minor display issues solved when displaying guests list

• When installing/updating licenses using the Character User Interface, V2C files are now sorted by license number then sequential number

• When starting a virtual machine from the console connection menu, the service startup log was not displayed, now solved.

• When sending a C2V file, it's content is no more displayed in the email body

• Table vertical align issue with HTML generated configuration information file and ncu output added

• Viewing guest log files did generate a 'tail' error. Solved

• When editing a configuration file using a graphical editor, checks where performed before leaving the editor. Solved

• 'telnet' is no more a mandatory package, it is now recommended. Not installing 'telnet' will prevent from connecting from the server to the CHARON virtual machine(s) console.

• 'screen' is no more a mandatory package, it is now recommended. Not installing 'screen' will prevent from the autoconnect feature to run in the background (this feature was mainly designed for CHARON-AXP/VAX V4.4)

• 'wall' alert messages are now disabled by default at installation

• License expiration check when executed in the crontab did send an incomplete alert message if the license was disconnected. Solved.

• When a virtual machine was stopped via the console and the user answered the service was voluntarily stopped, the guests list displayed the service stopped in a 'unrequested' state whereas it should be 'requested'. Solved

• Regular license expiration check (crontab) was sending email with either errors (unlimited licenses only) or blank email to root even if no error was found. Solved

• None, bug fixes only

• While displaying the guests list, if the service is inactive the charon_gstart.chkrun script is no more executed (used to gather information from the guest)

• Installation of a new license option using the character user interface failed with 'hasp_update' error message.

• License expiration alerts were sent from the log file even if the alert was disabled from the menu.

• When manually creating the log file entry in the monitored logs list, the service "ExecStart=" line was reporting "create" instead of the log name full path

• In some cases a log file could be present more than once in the managed log files list

• Alerts on "Sentinel HASP RunTime Error" messages now report the KeyId and mode (regular or backup) for errors 41 (expired) and 50 (key id not found)
  Example:

• The required "bc" package was not requested during installation, now solved

• Kit validated on CHARON-AXP and CHARON-VAX V4.7

• The installation menu option can now manage CHARON kits from V4.4 to V4.7

• Log monitor and usb license disconnection will now auto-restart in case of failure - Red Hat Enterprise 7 and Fedora only

• If auto-restart settings are defined for a virtual machine service, the settings are now displayed in the services view

• Log rotation is now supported - Requires CHARON-AXP or CHARON-VAX V4.7 minimum. Note: if switching to rotating log file, the log monitoring service must be restarted (preferably removed and redefined)

• When stopping and starting virtual machine on Linux distribution using systemd (Red Hat Enterprise 7 and Fedora) the progression is displayed

• When sending configuration and log files via email, those files are now zipped and sent in a unique .zip file. Also log files displayed in the mail body are limited to the last 64 lines (full log is available in the attached zipped file)

• Minor update in main menu layout